02:30pm Thu Feb19, 2004 

Although I've never really roamed the virtual isles of eBay, I'm aware that you can sell most anything there. Last night the president of Exahost Inc. contacted me through Microsoft Messenger; Peter and I go way back and get along great mainly because he understands my bent mind and appreciates my off-wall sense of humour. The chat started as it usually does, with him asking a quick question, us getting into a brief conversation then him being abruptly pulled away with a phone call from a client (...he's now on the west coast, so I'm drinking a Beer and he's working...) So there I sit staring at "BRB: Phone" -- I call this state Messenger Purgatory, sort of like being on hold except I know Peter's watching his screen while assisting his customer, so like I've done so often in the past, I start chatting with myself. Moments pass before Peter 'returns' to the conversation chewing me out that he had to keep putting his customer on hold because he was laughing so hard. I told him he better save the conversation, it'll be worth millions on the world market. It didn't take him long at all... Look what we found on eBay. ...pull my finger.

 

02:22pm Wed Feb18, 2004 

Some ask what the point of pre-ordering a soon to be released game would actually be... it's not as if they're only going to make 5,000 copies then you're screwed, they will print more; so why bother rushing to purchased something that just proves you're going to purchase something later? Perks! Here is a classic example of a pre-order deal that I think's great; EA Games fantastic Battlefield series has new and greatly anticipated continuation coming out soon, just take a look at this action from Battlefield Vietnam and if you pre-order you get this spanky CD of the official soundtrack. This CD has 11 tracks by the original artists that held top chart during the period; this is a great music CD worthy of purchase on its own, nice bonus EA.

As it turns out, BTM43 will be after the birthing episode... You don't want our Treasurer, Isis collecting from you in her condition. No really; you don't. We're probably going to be looking at the first week or so in May -- We'll finalize the date and post it here soon!

 

10:45am Mon Feb16, 2004 

Now this really pisses me off... Firstly, Canadians still tend to get a little excited whenever there's even a reference to Canada on television in the States (...mostly because we're still not sure if Americans even know we're here...) so to have Conan right here in Toronto for a week was a big deal for the city as far as exposure goes; we're still trying to convince everyone else that we're not walking the streets wearing surgical masks... I've taped all the episodes directly to DVD and had the intension of editing them into a nice four chapter, commercial free DVD; I guess I should have taped the first air date for each show and not relied on the rebroadcast. It would seem the Canadian Government took Triumph the insult comic dog's bit on the French to heart and slaughtered the spot before the show repeated (...and before I caught the bit...) I have a real issue with censorship, I guess that's the appeal of the internet, I can say whatever the hell I want and there's little you can do about it other than threaten to throw poop at me -- I personally think Triumph is a riot, just check out the bashing he gives Hawaii when he does an impromptu weather report as a guest spot. Now because 'someone else' decided on my behalf that I'm not mature enough, or that my morals aren't strong enough to handle his humour I'll not get to see the spot that pissed everyone off... Bite me.

 

11:15am Fri Feb13, 2004 

Happy Friday the thirteenth everyone! Seems we've figured out why the media is promoting Conan on the news so much, we think it's to overshadow the big scam that hit our new Prime Minister this week; Auditor General Shelia Fraser found at least $100 million in public funds was funnelled to Liberal supporters for a federalist ad campaign in Quebec, and that most of the work was never done. "I am sick and deeply, deeply troubled about what happened," Martin began, before addressing his own involvement. He notes that the program began in 1997, but that questions began to be raised about it in the year 2002; that's when the Auditor General first identified irregularities. "That is when I began to understand that what had occurred went far beyond administrative failures and involved possible criminal conduct," the P.M. insists. "But even then no one understood the full scope of what was involved until the Auditor General's Report came out recently "Some can't understand how as a Quebec minister I could not have known about the conduct of this program. Well, the fact is that very few ministers did." -- perhaps that should read, most ministers don't have a clue.

Have you nailed the new demo of UnReal Tournament 2004 yet? The official site for the demo claims there's so many people hammering on their servers and mirrors that many are having an issue getting the game demo (...Oh! What's that on the SuperFTP the day it was released; sitting right there in the "All things UnReal" folder?..) I have yet to actually check the game out myself, but we're getting some very positive feedback about it already! Grab it and give it a shot.

 

02:00pm Wed Feb11, 2004 

Late Night, eh?Look who's the talk of Toronto right now... The big T.O. has rolled out the red carpet for America's late night King, Conan O'Brien. The Canadian Adventure kicked of his 1,854th show in his tenth season. Canadian funny-man and local resident Mike Myers joined the first show to add some 'shaawing!'; tonight's guest is Michael J. Fox, Ken Capling and Nickelback -- To show our appreciation, the Canadians will be sending the Americans Mike Bullard; please feed him twice a day and give him an open area to run around, he likes cheese. (...if you didn't tape it and couldn't last till 12:30am to watch it, this morning's show will be re-run at 10:00pm on Star!... If you couldn't even give a crap, please disregard the entire upper paragraph, and pay no mind to the image either... It'll fade to the bottom of the minutes in time...)

Seems Isis has begun 'nesting' now, the third floor of the Abattoir is quickly starting to look like a birthing center... As such, it seems unlikely at this time there will be a scheduled BTM till after the birth of (...as yet unnamed...) MiniMeat. You all have the option however, of bombarding her email with pleas and promises that you'll be good if we can have another BTM before April; just tell her you can't wait that long. (...don't tell her I told you to say that though...).

 

07:00pm Mon Feb09, 2004 

Rick Mercer's Monday ReportsTime to give a shout out to the CBC, or more appropriately Rick Mercer. There’s arguably a quantity of talent at the CBC, I've been to tapings of The Red Green Show, Kids in the Hall several times and Royal Canadian Air Farce (...where I bid over $200.00 on an autographed tee shirt live with the cast *lowers morphine drip* and loved every minute of it...) – these are/were all Canadian shows that are well worth the watch, but there's something new out there I was excited to hear about, and his fourth show is tonight at 8:00pm; Rick Mercer's Monday Reports. For you American types, this would be Rick's own version and formula of you're the Daily Show with Jon Stewart (…not that I'm comparing them, but it would come as close a match that I can think of…) If you don't know what to watch tonight, take a watch; he's made me look forward to Mondays, and has let the world know why they should move to Ontario!. (..oh, and Canada's going to get it's own chunk of paradise as we add another "province" to Canada, eh?..)

There's rumour the next BTM might be after the birth of MiniMeat (…still as yet to be named, and I was the one who gave that guy the idea to call his Son v2.0…) We'll keep you posted here of course.

 

02:45pm Mon Feb 03, 2004 

Code meOh yeah! We’re back with a new look, but it’s kinda’ broken at the moment, so please bare with us while we beat the Abattoir into shape… Understand that the ‘grand change-over’ isn’t happening so like we said below, the site’s migration to the new format will be done in a rapid series of bit-by-bit movements barely visible to the human eye, yet effective enough to make it look like we’re still working around here. Due to SARS, the Abattoir had to lay-off over 80% of its web development team, 50% of the graphics guru’s had to go and we canned the entire R&D team; thus, you will find broken links and busted images until the remaining Abattoir staff can nail it all down. We hope the new layout (…complete with the ‘spanky new navigation’…) will be a little easier and more direct to get around in.

 

02:45pm Mon Feb 03, 2004 

...we're sorry, the Rover you're trying to reach is unavailable right now, please try your remote command later.Opportunity is knocking on Mars door, perhaps the Spirit Rover will answer… It’s been a couple weeks now since the rover fell silent after testing a motor in Spirit's Mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES). The motor drives the elevation mirror within the Panoramic Mast Assembly (…a long tube-shaped structure at the front of the rover…) Experiments were being done on Mars to compare temperature ranges and electrical currents needed to drive the mirror motor with those measured pre-launch in a vacuum chamber at JPL. These tests were in process when Spirit seems to have started to experience problems. Best they can tell, a situation has occurred which causes Sprit’s brain to reboot the rover. The processor comes online, loads up the software, then in a short time it reboots itself in what the scientists are calling a Safe Mode; Gee, my stupid computer does that all the time, it’s called Microsoft Windows. As it stands now, they're giving the flash RAM on Spirit a good flashing, they hope the format will fix the issue. Early January 25, at about 12:05 a.m. EST, NASA's second Mars Exploration Rover -- Opportunity -- arrived on Mars. It's region of research is an area known as Meridiani Planum, halfway around the planet from where its sister robot, the Spirit rover now wrestles with consciousness… In other space related, robotic, scientific news -- The European Mars Express orbiter has confirmed the existence of water ice in the south polar cap of Mars! The craft also beamed back a detailed photo of a channel on the red planet that might have long ago been created by flowing water. Scientists have long known that Mars' north polar cap is composed mostly of water ice. Previous observations by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) had experts convinced the south polar cap contained water ice, too. In fact there appears to be a vast store of frozen water mostly buried under a blanket of carbon dioxide ice, commonly called dry ice. Some of the dry ice melts away during summer in the southern hemisphere of Mars, exposing sheets of water ice below -- that's what MGS had found photographic evidence for. Sounds like a great place to set up camp… Book my flight. If you step back and take a look at all this, it’s really rather incredible… We’ve picked a 5 mile long by 1 mile wide “target” area to land Opportunity and the folks at JPL did just that; in effect, they’ve blown a spit-ball over 50 million miles and scored a direct hit… Well done. (more)

Now THAT'S a screen!In Abattoir.Net related news, BTM42 saw the return of the “Wall of Quake v2004”, a big thanks to Al at AVDeals for the BoxLight Studio Cinema 20HD theatre head; with 2200 lumens and a 900:1 contrast ratio, this high definition unit has been dubbed “the flame thrower” for good reason. Couple that with a Da-Lite Permwall screen that assembles in seconds and you’ve got yourself over 4,784sq/inches of visual “Hello!!” We’ll have a permanent setup with a pull-down Sharpvision Screen set-up soon… Contact us if you’re interested in having your company logo burned into the retinas of the most advanced gamers in the world at the next BTM; our sponsorship rates are very competitive. If you would like to build your own "Wall of Quake", click over to AVDeals for the best pricing on plasmas and more, and we're not just saying that because they lent us this one!

Many emails coming in asking how
Isis is doing with the pregnancy; she’s in great shape and the shape she’s chosen is a circle. MiniMeat is getting to the point now where he’s starting to kick quite a bit; he was seen for the first time doing a flip – it was kind of like watching “Aliens” all over again. The new room on the Abattoir’s third floor is almost done, just a little trim to finish then the carpet goes in, then the baby goes in. Anyone know of a good name for a strapping young lad? I’ve yet to think of one that I like, send us your suggestions!

What a nice sporting event over the weekend too… It was nice to see Janet Jackson’s breast in high definition; all I can say about that is this, that was no “wardrobe failure” nor was it an accident – is that what we have to look forward to with each and every major telecast in the future, everyone trying to one-up the last celebrity kiss, the last celebrity breast, the last celebrity whatever!? …I hope so.

New site, look for it soon!Just a quick FYI here, I’ve been working on Abattoir.Net V4 for the last while, the idea was to premier the new site layout on new years, but as you can tell, that’s not happened, nor will it for a while but we might start ‘trickling’ in pages soon rather than attempt a total re-vamp of the entire site (…GasP! Notepad’s gunna’ be busy!..) so don’t be too shocked if you notice a few changes around here in the weeks to come. (…Gee, a LAN Minutes Update! There’s a change!..) We’re also still in limbo over BTM43’s date, we’ll let it out soon -- obviously, much of the planning for BTM43 will depend on the girth and desires of Isis.

 

 


Abattoir Approved connectivity


Abattoir Approved hosting

MeatMan Says:
"If you're new to Abattoir.Net and want to get to know what we're all about, sit back with a cup of joe or a brew and cruise through the ramblings of the past"


All images, content, site design and maintenance by Craig (MeatMan) Milton - All Rights®
"Bringing people together... so you can blow them apart!"